[Python-Dev] 2.7 is here until 2020, please don't call it a waste.

[Nick Coghlan]

On 31 May 2015 at 08:37, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
> Nick Coghlan wrote:
>
>> We've long had a requirement that certain kinds of proposal come with
>> at least nominal support commitments from the folks proposing them
>> (e.g. adding modules to the standard library, supporting new
>> platforms). Institutions with a clear financial interest in a
>> particular problem area can certainly make such commitments more
>> credibly,
>
> Are such commitments from commercial entities really
> any more reliable in the long term than anyone else's?
> Such entities can be expected to drop them as soon as
> they perceive them as no longer being in their financial
> interests.

Yes, if the credibility stems from the market situation and the
financial incentives leading an organisation to make the offer, rather
than from the personal interest of one or two key folks at that
organisation. Structural incentives are harder to shift than personal
interests, so this is a case where institutional inertia actually
works for the community rather than against us.

It's not an ironclad guarantee (since businesses fail, divisions get
shut down, companies decide to exit markets, etc), but if we
understand the business case backing an investment decision (whether
that investment is in the form of funding, developer time, or both),
that's genuinely more reliable than commitments from individuals
(since we don't have the kind of ability to manage and distribute risk
that larger organisations do).

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia